01/15/12
The Goodness of God In Creation
If you’re just joining us, we are spending all of 2012 going through the Bible...from cover to cover...Genesis to Revelation.
Let me explain for a moment how and why we’re going to do this (And...I spoke extensively on this last week).
Illustration: If you’ve ever flown in an airplane, you have probably experienced this. You’re en route to your destination when the pilot comes over the intercom and says something to the effect of: “We are currently 400 miles from our destination; if you look out to your right, folks, you’ll see New York City (Times Square)...or the Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, or the Pacific.” And what the pilot is really doing, is he’s drawing your attention to a point of interest...something significant...or beautiful or noteworthy.
And that is something of how we’re going to approach this year...from a 30,000-foot vantage point. We’ve got 50 or so weeks to walk through the Bible together...and what I’m going to try to do is to draw your attention to some of the significant, noteworthy moments or reference points in the biblical narrative. And as a result we will gain a wider understanding and a deeper appreciation of Scripture. But this will only serve our much greater intent and purpose, which is that we would come to know the Author of the Bible personally...and that we’d love him more...and be more open to his presence in our lives, individually...and as a community.
So, as we begin, it’s important that we see the Bible for what it is...as a story. Otherwise, we’ll want to treat the Bible as a book that is primarily about how we should live...and we’ll slip into moralism (trying to live our way into a relationship with God).
The Bible is a single narrative...and the central character is God. The central storyline of the Bible is about how God made the world...how the world was ruined...and how God has entered into our world through the Person of Jesus Christ to save us from sin and death. Finally, it’s about what God is doing through Jesus Christ to restore His creation...and we’re apart of that plan.
So...let’s go to the beginning... In these first pages, we discover something profound and wonderful about God...about life itself...and finally, about ourselves.
Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
When we read this text through a western, modern lens...the first question on many of our minds is, ‘how?’ How did God create the heavens and the earth and the animals...and fish...and birds...and cosmos?
And some of us will ask, ‘how does evolution fit into this?’ Is Genesis one suggesting that the earth was created in six days...is this a literal account or figurative?
Although we can’t deal with this in length, can I suggest to you that when the biblical writers (including the author of Genesis) talk about creation itself, they are less concerned with how and far more concerned with why, or ‘for what purpose,’ or ‘to what end?’ Which is a far more beneficial question for us to ask... Let me explain...
Illustrated – A couple of years ago...Beth purchased me a true man-gift for Christmas (I’m stereotyping). When I opened the trunk and I beheld a 10HP, 2-cycle, electric start snow blower, the first question that entered my mind was not, “How did the manufacturer put this together?” Rather... “Why? What’s it for?”
You see...by understanding its purpose, I can use the snow blower for what it was designed to do; however, even if I knew everything of the mechanics and manufacturing, if I don’t understand it’s purpose, it will do me no good.
Can I suggest that questions such as; “Why did God create the world? Why do we feel the way we do? How do we live in it?” will help us move toward a discovery of purpose and meaning.
When the writer was poetically and rhythmically recording the creation narrative in Genesis 1, I assure you that he wasn’t thinking to himself, ‘now how does this reconcile with the theory of evolution?’ I’m not discounting the how questions at all...you simply won’t find their answers here...
Before we move on, let me take a moment to point out a couple of things in the text that point to a ‘how.’
First... “In the beginning, God created...”
There are many accounts of creation that can be found in ancient mythology or in far Eastern religions, which say that the world began as a result of chance or a random act of force.
In some accounts, humans were made from the blood of a slain god, or the slaughter of a sea monster, or were formed from primordial ooze. Others say that the earth was the byproduct of a vicious battle between the gods, and then the victorious gods decided to create humans to serve their needs.
Nowhere other than the Christian account of creation do you find One God fashioning the world from nothing (ex nihilo).
In the beginning, God...and God created the world...
And notice that creation here is not the result of chaos and conflict, God speaks and He creates, disorder moves toward order...from chaos comes the cosmos...the uninhabitable world begins to teem with life.
Let me tell you why this is incredibly important,
The modern secular voice says... ‘This world is all that there is; we’re here by random chance...no divine purpose.
If you live according to this idea, this world will be all that matters to you...and you’ll look to it to provide you with meaning, purpose and significance; furthermore, you will have no hope beyond this life.
Ancient mythology says... ‘This world isn’t important at all...matter is bad, evil...all that matters is the afterlife.’
If you listen to that, then this world won’t matter to you at all...it won’t matter how you treat your neighbor, or how you steward creation itself...or what you do with your body...all that will matter to you is that which lies beyond this life.
“Eastern religions say this world is unreal, it’s an illusion...Western religions (Greeks and Romans) say that this world is bad, the body is bad, the spirit is noble and virtuous and good. Islam says, paradise is a spiritual world. We leave the physical world. Only the Bible has such a high view and positive view of the goodness of creation. Only the Bible envisions spirit and matter existing in integrity forever. You literally have God with his hands in the dirt and dust, especially when forming man and woman.”
Archbishop William Temple
The biblical account of creation says that God created the world. Therefore, this world matters...it’s important, and this resonates with our soul, doesn’t it? It means that all that we know of creation itself: friendship, and family, work, food, drink, watching a beautiful sunset, smelling the ocean breeze, catching snowflakes with your tongue, love, sex...all of these things matter and are meant for our enjoyment, and come to us with a divine purpose.
How do we know this?
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
What do we find God doing at the end of each day? He’s speaking... He creates...then he speaks...over and over...
And what does he say? It is good... What does this mean?
When you go to your favorite restaurant...and take your first bite of filet mignon, or lobster bisque, or you sip at your favorite drink...and you say... ‘That is so good,’ are you saying, ‘that passes inspection?’
No, you’re saying...this is wonderful...you’re celebrating. That’s what God is doing here...
God is singing over his creation... ‘It is good.” He’s celebrating the details and nuances of his creation...
Which means, among other things, that there is a profound motivation for playfulness in this life...a divine reason to receive and enjoy life.
It also means that while we’re free to enjoy created things...we don’t worship them. You see...creation is constantly pointing beyond itself to a Divine Creator, who calls to us through His creation...so that we would enjoy it...and through our enjoyment, we would glorify Him.
Everything about the doctrine of creation...to what we see Jesus doing in the gospels...all the way to the book of Revelation (feast), says that as Christians, we may not lead solemn, boring, and repressed lives. We’re to receive this life...and enjoy it...and celebrate it...
So...we don’t deny the goodness of creation, nor do we worship creation (unlike Greek and Roman religion), because it’s not in creation that we find our value or self-worth...but through the Creator who stands behind His creation.
We find this in the text...read on with me...
Genesis 1:26-28, 31
At the pinnacle of God’s creation, he fashions man and woman in His own image. Each of us, made in the image of God...
For centuries...scholars and theologians have debated what it means to be made in the image of God. What sets humans apart from the rest of creation? And there are clues here in Genesis 1 (narrative). For example...God speaks...and man speaks to God and one another. God creates (from nothing), and man creates. God is the Divine Steward or Lord...and we also are stewards over creation. God is deeply relational...and we find man and woman who are also deeply relational coming together in marriage and sexual union.
Let me get very practical.
Look with me again at verse 27.
“So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)
Unlike the rest of creation, God designs every human being to be His image-bearer. If this is true, then every person is marked with a divinely ordained potential for joy and creativity and passion and personality and purpose.
Science says that humans are complex, but it says nothing about people having dignity, value and self-worth.
“We are the product of causes that had no pre-vision of the end they were achieving. The hopes, fears, loves and beliefs of our minds are just the outcome of the accidental collocation of atoms.” (Bertrand Russell; 20th century British philosopher and scholar)
“Scientifically, I see no reason for attributing to a man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or grain of sand.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the early 20th century)
This is the consensus of modern secularism...you are the product of a random act of chance. And we know this isn’t true, so therapists and psychologists will say to you, ‘you’re valuable...you matter.’ But based on what? You see, if there is no divine image inside of us...no greater purpose that comes from outside ourselves, then our significance will be based upon our capacity...or beauty or capability or success...
The doctrine of the image of God found in the Scriptures says to people...grounded in reality, you’re in the image of God...
No matter what you’ve done...or how low you’ve gone...or how you feel about yourself, or how this world sizes you up, there is rock solid, objective, undeniable, irreducible significance and value in every human being. (Talk more next week)
Which is not only significant for you, but it means something profound for everyone that you will know and meet...
It means that when I go to Starbucks or a local diner that the guy who serves me coffee or the gal who brings me my food has soul and a story that matters.
It means my Beth has a soul...she doesn’t exist for my personal happiness... part of my role as a husband is to draw out the divine image in her...
My neighbors matter...strangers matter...
There are profound implications to the doctrine of the image of God.
“There are no ordinary people...you have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, civilizations are mortal...they will end. Their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. It is with mortals that we joke, work. It is with mortals that we marry, snub, and exploit. Every mortal someday will be an immortal horror or everlasting splendors...” (C.S. Lewis – The Weight of Glory).
(T) Finally...let me suggest that if we are made in the image of God, that there is a divine purpose branded into our very being.
To be created in the image of God means that you have been designed to reflect God...to image Him.
Illustration – (Thankful Board): In our office, we have a thankful board on which our staff (or anyone who visits our office) writes something they’re grateful for. I work with some very talented artists, and when they draw pictures to represent something for which they’re thankful, you look at the picture., and you immediately see...that’s a piano or a guitar...that’s a guy jumping into a swimming pool. But if you were to look at my drawings, you’d see that I have to write a description beside them (Draw an owl because I love the Owl diner... “Is that an Owl or an angry bird or a Mr. Potato Head...not sure?”).
To image something is to so accurately represent something so that what you see in the reflection is the form itself (3 images).
Your life is like a canvas upon which God, the artist, displays his beauty and glory in your life...and He has designed you...so that when you live and love and play and rest and create and work and marry...you bring Him glory. You reflect on the canvas of your life...the divine markings of God’s handiwork.
Or...here in Genesis 1 and 2 and throughout the Scriptures, there is an image of a potter fashioning a piece of pottery with his hands...
“And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We are all formed by your hand.” (Isa 64:8)
Or, consider this... What is the purpose of a mirror? A mirror reflects perfectly the form.
We are like mirrors...designed to reflect his glory (weight, beauty, splendor, value), and when you reflect God with your life, He is glorified...and life flourishes.
To accurately reflect God...we must face Him.
We’re spiritually dependent beings, made to reflect God’s glory, not to produce our own glory.
God didn’t design you to generate your own glory. You have to get your value, sense of worth, beauty or significance from the outside.
(Stuart Smalley – “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and da gonnit, people like me.”)
If you look away from God, who alone can speak over you of your own worth, then you’ll look to and listen to the world. “What makes me who I am? If not God, what? Who? Power, pleasure, education, beauty, money, sex, achievement, success?
If your build your life and significance on who you are as a mother or father...or on the happiness of your children? Then what happens if they become unhappy or don’t succeed?
If you build your worth and value on romance...and you say, only when I have someone will I be someone...then who are you without that person?
Or if you base your self-worth on what your peers say about how well you do (business, beautiful or smart you are), then what when those friends walk away...or change their mind?
If you lose those things...you lose yourself. Don’t you see how those things are unable to fill your soul?
If you don’t find your significance in God (in the image of God), the image of God in you will be broken, and you’ll trample on the image of God in others.
Close
You see...in all of us, there is a deep longing to know that we are good...to hear the Creator sing over us...you’re good...
Creation sings of God’s glory...(Romans 1)
Psalm 19:1 – “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.”
Creation reflects God’s glory better than we do (Squirrels in my back yard fulfills the purpose of God better than me).
Shadows – Parents/Newborns... Bride and Groom...
Simone Weil – We want to enter into the song of creation but we can’t...
There is a deep longing in us to hear the same benediction of God...
Sin has broken our inability to hear His voice...we’ve stepped out from under the benediction...
Instead of looking to God...we look to a lover...a spouse...an employer...friends to tell us, you are good...
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that God so loved the cosmos that he sent Jesus to save it... He is so committed to material creation that he took it on in the incarnation.
He who fashioned the world became undone...so that we could be made new...
He who created everything that we see become uncreated...so that through his death and resurrection, we could be recreated, literally made new.
He gave up his life...(we could have life)
In the garden before his death, Jesus asked the Father, ‘Father, if you will, take this cup of suffering from me...and there was silence.’
On the cross...when he longed for the voice of God say ‘you are good,’ what did Jesus say? “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus gave up the benediction of God...so that you could become a son or daughter of God, so that God could speak over you every good thing...so that his good purpose could be restored in your life.
"To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son--it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is."
C.S. Lewis; The Weight of Glory
